


a test to withstand time

by thatemofangirl



Series: AUgust 2020 [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Bucky doesn’t want to be a demon, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, On the Run, Starting Over, Steve’s a bad angel, Together forever, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, but kinda without the arm, it’ll make sense, new lives together, no matter the lifetime, or in death, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatemofangirl/pseuds/thatemofangirl
Summary: When someone dies, they can either become and angel or a demon if they do enough good deeds, or similarly, enough bad.But what happens when they’re not really dead? And what happens when they come back to life?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: AUgust 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858408
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	a test to withstand time

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4: Angel and Demon AU 
> 
> Hey, I did it. An actual oneshot. I hope...

"Start another fight, and you'll expell yourself from Heaven, Stevie," Bucky chuckled wryly as he pulled the angel out of the bar by his arm.

"And if I had heard you apologize one more time, you probably could've earned your spot back." Steve countered, pulling his arm out of Bucky's grasp. "What are you doing? I have a job to do?"

"We both did."

"Did?"

Bucky rolled his eyes, sighing as he looked around to see if any unwanted attention was on them. "While you were busy whispering in that guy's ear reasons to start a fight with his brother, I took care of the guy you were sent to stop from drinking his life away."

"Buck..."

"Don't say anything, I already know." He leaned against the brick wall and fixed his dark leather jacket.

Steve watched, trying to think, as Bucky brooded in the corner. At first glance, James looked like the typical demon: long dark hair that was currently pulled back, dark clothes, and his stormy eyes were cold and unforgiving. But above all else, he was enticing in a way only the strongest saints could refuse.

Steve on the other hand was the complete opposite. Being an angel of the Lord, he was all light. Quite literally at times. If he got too happy, Steve would give off an ethereal silver glow, which would only illuminate the whites and cream colored cottons he wore. His golden hair was supposed to be a sign of loyalty, at least that's what he was told. He hadn't ever seen an angel without light colored hair. He couldn't say anything for Bucky though, he just always assumed. Steve had only known him as a demon. After he had fallen from grace.

Angels were supposed to be open and welcoming. Demons were supposed to be mysterious and tricksters. But both were influential.

Their respective leiges gave each and every angel and demon a job to do. Turn someone's life around, or cure a disease before they died before their time. Tell someone that their brother has been cheating them, or cause an infection disease to plague an entire city.

Steve and Bucky don't see each other often, only when their jobs coincide. Like just now, when Steve was sent to stop a man from drowning his sorrows in alcohol after being laid off and Bucky was supposed to send whispers to a different man about how his wife was cheating on him with his brother to invoke anger and rage. The chances that they would be in the same place were one in a billion. Maybe more.

It was the first time they had seen each other in almost eighty years.

Normally, being immortal, they don't change unless they wanted to. Steve hadn't aged a day since he died, still in the body of a 27-year-old man. But over the decades, Bucky had began to age. Not by much, a couple of years, but by looking at him, Steve could tell. His hair had gotten longer—it used to be about the same length as Steve's when they first met, and a healthy amount of stubble had grown along his jaw.

Neither of them knew the answer why, and they were too scared to ask.

Steve and Bucky didn't know much about their past lives, when they were alive. They weren't permitted to ask. Their consciousnesses were wiped clean when they died. All they knew was that Bucky was cast from Heaven without being an angel for a whole day. Something he had done when he was alive had already sorted where he was going to go after death.

"If you keep doing my job, you could get into a lot of trouble!"

"Or they would let me back into Heaven! Think about that?" Bucky argued and Steve shut his mouth.

He had a plan, one he would never tell Steve in case it never worked out. Do enough good deeds to be up there with the angels, and maybe he could prove himself. He never thought he fit in with the other demons, like he was there against his will.

He just wanted to be with Steve.

But what he didn't know, was that Steve had a plan of his own. He had always had a spitfire personality, since his first day as an angel. He would test boundaries, learn the rules; they were simple enough: do your job, commit no sin, just to break them without breaking them.

But once Steve met Bucky, he couldn't help but feel they knew each other when they were alive. There was something that drew him to the demon, and considering Bucky never waved him off but instead returned the interest in friendship, he assumed Bucky had had the same feeling. A gut instict. They were close when they were alive, and somehow, either because of luck or misfortune, they had died around the same time.

It had been seven decades, almost eight, and to say they grew close would be an understatement. 

Steve had also wanted to be with Bucky, and that's why he had a plan to do as much evil things as he could, and maybe he could lose his wings. Be a demon with Bucky for all of eternity.

Neither of them had told the other, and if it could, it would kill them by having to keep it secret. Because while both of them would secretly love it, the chance to finally be with each other, the part of them that wants to protect the other would attempt to stop them.

Bucky hates it in Hell. He hates being a demon, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone, _especially_ Steve, to live that with him.

And Steve, he knows that if a demon was caught commiting acts of morality, then they would be sent to oversee the torture of the damned as punishment.. Between knowing Bucky, and seeing his eyes becoming more and more haunted and distant each time they see each other, Bucky had already lived through torture once before. It would be his worst nightmare come true. Even if he didn't know why it would be.

It was silent between the two of them, but the regular sounds of traffic in the city and the chatter and music inside the bar was still all around them.

"You want to get back into Heaven?" Steve asked quietly, stepping toward Bucky who had torn his eyes from where he was watching a couple walk down the sidewalk hand in hand and faced Steve.

"Of course I do. It's worth it, isn't it?"

Steve folded in on himself, dropping nearly three inches as for the first time in a long time, he felt nauseous.

"Buck, I've been trying to get into Hell."

Bucky blinked. "You _what_?" He stood uo and stormed to Steve, poking the blond in the shoulder. "That's crazy! Why would you want to give up paradise!"

"For you! You should know that! You're trying to get into _Heaven_ for me." He paused. "Aren't you?"

Bucky sighed. "You're such a punk."

Steve smiled despite the weight of learning the truth behind why Bucky never complained about doing Steve's job but got angry ever time Steve did his.

"All of this," Bucky began, moving his arm down so he could grab Steve's hand. What a sight that must've been to anyone walking by. Two men who look like complete opposites holding hands next to a bar. "We've been canceling each other out, haven't we? They still think we're doing out jobs even though we've been doing each other's?"

"This isn't working," Steve squeezed Bucky's hand before letting go, moving to stand next to him instead of in front. "We need to come up with a different plan."

"No, the plan is fine. You stop doing a demons work, and I'll double up on angel stuff." Bucky stated, still set on getting back into Heaven.

"And who knows how much longer it'll take? If you don't get persecuted first and banished to spend the rest of eternity without being able to come up to Earth anymore. I don't wanna risk that Buck,"

"Do you have a better plan? This is what we have, so I might as well try. There's no way I'm letting you become a demon for me. That's not a world for you."

"Actually," A small mischievous smile appeared on Steve's face. "I think I do."

Bucky turned his head back to Steve, some more of his hair falling out of the elastic that held it back and acting like a frame to his face. "What?"

"What if we run away?"

"Like teenagers?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "I mean, instead of going back to report on our jobs, we just stay here. On Earth."

"Wouldn't they—"

"They _wouldn't_!" Steve was starting to get excited now, believing more and more in his plan the longer he thought about it. "They would think we went AWOL first, that something happened to us to stop us from leaving Earth. They'd send angels and demons to find and retrieve us, and as long as we stay hidden from them..."

"We won't have to go back." Bucky finished, feeling his hopes rise until uncertainty forced it's way in. "What about if they find us though? What if we make it too obvious we're running and they don't believe the AWOL cover anymore?"

"You said you think we died in the war?" Steve asked, and Bucky nodded slowly. "So, if we were soldiers, then we should probably still have a soldier's instict. Know how to stay covert and low-key, how to cover our tracks. We're smart, we'll be fine." Then Steve bit the inside of his cheek. "But in the chance we get caught, just so you can feel better, Heaven has a trial system. If an angel is believed to have intentions none other than serving God, then they get put on suspension until they promise to swear they won't do it again."

"Unless they try to overthrow God." Bucky joked.

"What about you? Do...do demons get second chances?"

"I think...if we get caught, I could say I kept you hostage. Forced you to stay with me in hopes to bring you down with me. That's highly praised down there, converting an angel. I'll be let off. I think."

"So, then if we get caught, we'll be able to do it again!" Steve exclaimed, large grin wide enough to reach his eyes. Bucky however, shrugged off his jacket and draped it over Steve's shoulders when the angel started glowing. The darkness helped give Steve the hint. The last thing they needed, especially if they were going to run away together, was a human seeing Steve shining like the beacon of light he was and asking for him to perform a miracle.

"Are we really doing this?" Bucky asked hesitatantly. He didn't want to lose Steve.

"We _could_ keep meeting like this..." Steve trailed off, but Bucky shook his head.

"No. No we're doing this."

"And we're doing this together."

"Together."

Just like they had said, they realized after a week that there were other angels and demons after them. Steve and Bucky took too traveling the world, never staying in one place too long. They did take a liking to Brookyln however, going back a couple of times, but never staying more than a week.

But they were quick to adapt to their new lifestyle. Steve became an artist, sketching and painting both landmarks of the different places they visit between pages of Bucky. And Bucky, he got to look at the stars for the first time. Really look at them. He bought books and books on astrology, and at night, he would point out different constellations and tell their stories.

Years passed, and they never got caught. For the first time, they were truly happy. They were truly together. Hiding had become a second nature, and they had gotten so good at it that they were able to settle for longer periods of time before moving again.

They might have been fugitives, Heaven and Hell surely must have caught on to the fact that they didn't want to go back, but they couldn't think of a better way to live.

They had each other, and that was all they wanted. All they needed.

Never dwelling on their consequences, Steve and Bucky leanred to live in the moment. To take other risks, to do everything they ever wanted to do just in case.

But still, Bucky wasn't ready when Steve disappeared.

It wasn't all at once. And they thought maybe it was punishment for an angel spending too much time on Earth. Steve would become distant, forget who he was or not be able to talk to move. The first day, it was only for a couple of minutes at a time. The second day, it was for hours.

On the third, Bucky woke up to find Steve had disappeared completely. The shadow of his wings permanently scarring where he had slept. The sign of a dead angel.

Bucky mourned for two years.

He walked Earth carelessly, not really caring if he had gotten caught or not. He didn't know he spent most of the time invisible to humans, living in the shadows.

He found solace in Steve's sketchbooks, gazed at the stars to remember their midnight conversations.

More than once, he thought about returning to Hell. Wondered if since he was gone for so long, if they would kill him too. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to live without Steve. And if he was going to be sent to torture souls, he definitely didn't want too.

But then, Bucky started to disappear too. It didn't take time like Steve had, but rather it felt like he was being ripped back into his old consciousness. But once it happened, Bucky realized that this wasn't the first time it happened. In fact, it must have happened at least two dozen times before.

Steve and Bucky didn't so much as die again, but instead, they seemed to have came back to life.

The same life.

Steve was confused and frankly scared when he woke up in 2012. Memories of his life came back to him almost instantly. He was Steven Grant Rogers. Captain America. He died saving the world but the genetic serum that turned him into a supersolider brought him back to life.

Bucky wasn't confused or scared. He was empty. Commandless. He didn't feel any emotion or remember who he was or anything about his past until he fought Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier.

Even then, his past was still spotty. Broken memories. And when he tried to get answers, he was wiped.

This went on for years. Pain and suffering. Hard work and fighting.

In a different consciousness, Steve and Bucky had to find another way to beat the system to find each other again.

They didn't know how to do it, but they were sure they could.

Because they did once back in the 1940s, and even though they don't remember, they did it again; betraying two of the greatest forces in the afterlife.

What they didn't know was that those two times were tests. The third time's the charm, and they've proven each time that they would do anything for the other. They will succeed once more.

"Do you know me?"

"You're Steve. I read about you in a museum."

No matter what it takes.


End file.
